Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN!
Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2017.

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Monday, October 27, 2008

Monday on the TMG Cruise - Part 2

The first Monday afternoon presentation was “Genealogical Problem Solving” by Elizabeth Shown Mills. Elizabeth used real life and imaginary (humorous) case studies to illustrate her 13 research tips. Basically, she said follow the trail of people and paper work – what records exist, who did the people associate with, and do research in original records, not just gather names, dates and places. Research is not looking up the answer in books or databases, research is tracking down the answer, since nobody else has solved the problem. This was a fun and informative presentation – she’s the expert, of course! Here is Elizabeth with her opening slide - I sat in the middle of the first section for this talk:

Next up was Barbara Vines Little, with “Working the Land: Tracing Land Ownership.” She also used case studies to illustrate the methods. Barbara covered deed terminology and some inheritance laws and noted that the researcher needs to know what laws apply when. She suggested using an in-out chart to track land transactions by a person, paying attention to parcels that are not bought but are sold by the person, and using platting techniques to find parcel locations and neighbors. She noted that indexes may have only names that affect land titles, and some property exchanges, or leases or mortgages, may be in the deed books but not in the indexes. A good lecture.

I missed the last lecture of the day – John Grenham presented “The Naming of the Green: Irish Place Names and Surnames.” The syllabus has an excellent text for this lecture.

I was fried by this time; the jittering of the boat made me nauseous in the morning, and I was sleepy in the afternoon. We went to dinner at 6 pm on formal night. We didn't ask for a table with others, so we stared at each other eating for two hours. Dinner was good, though! We went to the "Do You Wanna Dance" show in the Princess Theater after dinner.

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About Me

I am a native San Diegan, a graduate of San Diego State University, a retired aerospace engineer, a genealogist and a family guy.
My wife (Angel Linda) and I have two lovely daughters, and four darling grandchildren. We love to visit them and have them visit us.
Angel Linda and I love to travel to visit friends and relatives, to sightsee, to cruise or to do genealogy. Our travels have taken us all over the USA, to England, Down Under and Scandinavia.
For earlier posts (not visible on the main post list), please see the Archives listed below by month.
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Contact me via email at randy.seaver@gmail.com